Chapter 169: The One at the Front
The address Elden sent led to a restaurant.
Not a guild hall. Not a training facility or a meeting room in some coordination office. A restaurant, the kind with actual tablecloths and a menu that had descriptions longer than one sentence. Kai stopped outside and looked at it. Elden was already at a table near the window. He waved when he saw Kai through the glass.
Kai went in.
"You picked this," he said, sitting down.
Elden smiled. "You’ve eaten enough dungeon rations. You deserve real food."
Kai looked at the menu. "I won’t argue with that."
They ordered. The food arrived. Neither of them said anything about Authority immediately, which told Kai more about Elden than most conversations had. The man was comfortable. He had something he wanted to say and he was not in any hurry to say it, which was different from how most people approached these conversations lately.
They ate.
Eventually Elden looked up from his plate.
"So," he said. "Have you thought about it?"
Kai knew exactly what he meant. "The guild."
"The guild," Elden confirmed.
Kai was quiet for a moment. He picked up his drink.
"I have," he said. "I don’t know."
Elden waited.
"I know how to fight," Kai said. "I know how to survive. I know how to solve problems when they’re in front of me." He looked at the glass. "I don’t know how to run a guild. Victor was corrupt. But he knew how to build something. He understood recruitment. Resources. How to make something grow over time." He set the glass down. "I’ve only ever looked after myself. And lately a few people."
He looked at Elden. "Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to be Guild Master? I’ll help. I’ll fight. You can use my reputation. But you’re the one with actual experience running something."
Elden listened to all of this. He took a bite of his food. Chewed it. Set his fork down.
"Normally I’d agree with you," he said.
He looked out the window at the street. A group of hunters was passing by, talking among themselves. A family at the corner waiting to cross. A worker repairing something on the building across the street.
"Mythal keeps changing," Elden said. "The system appeared. Then C-rank. Then the Mythical phase. Then B-rank. Then Authority." He looked back at Kai. "Every few months the world becomes something different."
"Yes," Kai said.
"Have you noticed something?"
Kai frowned. "What."
Elden leaned back in his chair. "Every single time it changes, you’re already moving."
Kai started to say something.
"You awakened without a real class," Elden said. "You still reached Rank One. You had no guild behind you. You still stood next to the strongest hunters in the city. When everyone else was recovering after the Mythical phase, you walked into the last dungeon alone."
"I had Sera with me for most of it," Kai said.
Elden smiled. "I know. And she followed you."
The table was quiet for a moment.
"You know what leadership actually looks like?" Elden said.
Kai waited.
"It’s not standing behind everyone and directing them," Elden said. "It’s walking first." He nodded toward the window. "The first person through the gate. The first person into danger. The first person to try something nobody else has tried yet. The first person willing to fail." He looked at Kai. "You keep doing that. Without realizing you’re doing it."
"So you really think I could do it?"
Elden smiled. "I don’t think. I know."
Kai looked down at the table. His fingers rested against the glass without moving. "What if I fail or the guild goes down?"
Elden didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he smiled. "Then we’ll fix it."
Kai blinked and Elden laughed. "Did you think Guild Masters are born knowing what they’re doing? Because no one I know isn’t."
"You’re saying, it’s fine to fail?"
"It’s fine to make mistakes." He leaned forward slightly. "The difference is whether you stop walking after you make one. You never have."
Kai points out. "But guild members lose trust when their leaders fail though."
"No, they stumble. But when they see their leader not give up and try again. Then that trust is easily repaired and strengthened. If the Guild Master keeps walking, so does everyone else."
He set the fork down.
"When our members watch you, they’ll keep moving. When other guilds watch our members, they’ll raise their own standards. One guild becomes two. Two becomes ten. The whole city grows." He looked at Kai. "You’re not an administrator. You’re a direction."
Kai sat with this for a moment.
Then he laughed. Short. Genuine.
"Alright," he said.
Elden smiled. "So?"
"Let’s build one," Kai said. "After this is over."
Elden reached across the table. Kai shook it.
"Deal," Elden said.
They ate the rest of the meal without urgency. The restaurant had the comfortable noise of a place that was busy without being crowded, other tables with their own conversations, the sound of the kitchen doing its work, the city visible through the window doing what the city did in the evening.
Eventually Elden refilled his water and said, "Why do you want Authority."
Kai told him. Not the long version, not the Archive, just the honest short answer. Leo. Mina. His friends. The city. The eligibility number that had appeared in the system projection and what it would mean for someone younger than the current threshold to be classified as eligible.
Elden listened without interrupting.
When Kai finished, Elden was quiet for a moment. He looked at the window.
"I don’t want to become a mayor," Elden said. "I don’t want to spend every day behind a desk making the same decisions for the next twenty years. I don’t want people listening to me because of a title."
He watched a child through the window walking beside a parent, the kid holding something that looked important to them and probably was not valuable to anyone else.
"I want to make tomorrow easier than today," Elden said.
Kai listened.
"When people imagine leaders, they picture someone standing at the finish line," Elden said. "Someone who already made it. Someone pointing back and saying follow me, I know where we end up." He shook his head. "I think that’s wrong."
He looked at Kai.
"A leader is the one walking first. The one who builds the road so everyone else can walk it. The one clearing the path while everyone else is still figuring out where the path even is."
Kai thought about the Candidate. He had never called Authority rulers but instead caretakers.
Back then Kai had understood the word. And now, sitting across from Elden, he finally understood why. Authority wasn’t about standing above people. It was about walking first and building the road before anyone else could see it.
Making tomorrow easier than today.
Elden continued. "If the authorities can improve the schools, children have better futures. If it can improve housing, families live better. If it can control how resources are distributed after gate clears, hunters survive longer because the right people have what they need." He looked at his water glass. "I don’t want people thanking me. I want them forgetting how hard things used to be."
Kai looked at him.
"You’ve been thinking about this for a while," Kai said.
"Since the Territory operation," Elden said. "Maybe before that." He picked up his glass. "I didn’t fully understand what I wanted until I started watching what you were doing. Not the fights. The choices."
The server returned carrying two small desserts.
Kai looked up. "We didn’t order those."
She smiled. "The owner wanted to thank you." Kai blinked. "For everything you’ve done for the city."
She set the plates down before quickly excusing herself.
Kai watched her leave.
Elden laughed. "Still getting used to that?"
Kai looked at the dessert. "...A little."
They ate their dessert for the next ten minutes and then once they were done, it was time to go. The bill arrived and Elden paid before Kai could do anything about it.
"You bought groceries today," Elden said. "I bought dinner. Seems fair."
Kai had not mentioned the groceries to him. He did not ask how Elden knew.
Outside, the evening air had the cool quality of Mythal at this time of year, clear and comfortable. The street was still active, the city running at its evening pace.
Elden stretched his arms above his head. "I already know a good dungeon," he said.
Kai smiled. "I figured you’d picked one."
Elden laughed. "Of course." He started walking. "It’s a D-rank gate in the southern district. Quiet terrain. Enough space."
Kai fell into step beside him.
"No livestream this time?" Kai said.
Elden thought about it. "I think we should," he said. "Not for the audience. For the record." He glanced at Kai. "Whatever happens should be visible."
Kai nodded.
They walked south through the evening city, two candidates heading toward the third challenge.
They turned onto the next street.
A teenager walking past slowed. He looked at Kai and then at Elden. "...Wait." His friend followed his gaze. "...They’re together."
The first teenager was already pulling out his phone.
Kai and Elden kept walking.
Neither looked back.
Behind them, the first post had already appeared online.
Kai and Elden spotted together.
Within minutes...
The whole city would know another Authority duel was about to begin.
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